The Upstate Economic Development Board is expected to vote on an agreement with Weld County, including renting space from the county for $1 per year and administering the fundraising and marketing portion of the Bright Futures higher education grant program, at the end of May. After that, county commissioners are expected to vote on the agreement, as well as approve the first members of the Bright Futures Board.

By the numbers

The following numbers represent Weld County’s estimated annual contribution to the Bright Futures program, and assumes an additional $1.5 million in donations annually. 2-year is the costs of cutting the program to two years instead of four. 4-year is keeping the program at four years. Colo. only, Colo./Wyo and Colo./Surrounding refer to students being limited to higher education institutions in Colorado, Colorado and Wyoming and Colorado and surrounding states.

Current system — 2-year: $4.5 million; 4-year: $8.5 million

Colo. only — 2-year: $3.24 million; 4-year: $6.4 million

Colo./Wyo — 2-year: $3.66 million; 4-year: $7.1 million

Colo./Surrounding — 2-year: $3.72 million; $7.2 million

Less than two years after promising up to $12,000 toward college for every Weld County high school graduate or honorably discharged veteran, county commissioners are considering deep cuts to the program to keep it alive.

Unveiled in September 2015, the Weld County Bright Futures program promised up to $3,000 per year for four years to every Weld County high school graduate or honorably discharged veteran. It originally was supposed to be funded through donations, and the county set up a property tax rebate program for resident donors.

But donations have not kept pace with program costs, expected to reach $10 million per year in three years.

With an eye toward keeping the program afloat, commissioners during a Tuesday afternoon work session discussed six official options and some off-the-cuff suggestions, including the following:

» Reducing the county's commitment to two years.

» Cutting the amount to $2,500 per year.

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» Limiting the program only to students attending Colorado higher education institutions.

» Cutting the amount of time after high school students can qualify for the program.

All county staff and commissioners seemed to agree they would leave the 2016 class untouched and grandfathered in as a sort of one-year pilot program.

The commissioners have enlisted Upstate Economic Development to help with fundraising, and there are plans to put a Bright Futures Board — complete with two commissioner members — in place. There's also a plan to hire a full-time fundraising director. All told, Weld County will spend more than $100,000, including an additional 15 percent of salaries of new employees who will be housed under the Upstate umbrella.

Commissioners will wait for that board to be filled, which is likely to happen in early June, before making a final decision on the new Bright Futures direction.

Many of these questions were on the table in fall 2015, when commissioners first launched the program. At that time — and as recently as November — commissioners expressed confidence the program, based on property tax credits for donations to the fund, would work just as intended.

Last month, Finance Director Don Warden told commissioners the county eventually would need to contribute $8.5 million per year from the general fund to keep the program going.

Commissioner Sean Conway was alone in saying he received a lot of feedback about that level of funding. Regardless, commissioners were back at the table Tuesday exploring other options.

"Any time you start a program, you learn things," Conway said. "We all said from the beginning we didn't know what we didn't know. We knew we would have to revisit it. There might have been some assumptions that didn't play out."

One such assumption was the county's ability to raise the $10 million per year necessary. It's an amount more than double United Way's annual campaign.

"One of the things I think we underestimated was how hard it was to communicate to people," Conway said, citing a recent survey showing just 30 percent of Weld residents were aware of the program.

Now, officials are hopeful to raise $1.5 million per year, which is factored into the costs associated with each of the new options going forward.

The county could save $4 million per year if they reduced the program to two years instead of four. They could save another $700,000 if they limited the program to students staying in-state for college, a move that would have impacted 261 students from the 2016 high school graduating class.

There was talk of limiting it to higher education institutions in Colorado and Wyoming, or Colorado and its surrounding states, with cost savings around the $500,000 mark.

With the current options, the lowest amount Weld County would spend out of its general fund is $3.24 million, which would be the new cost if the county reduced the program to two years and limited it to Colorado higher education institutions.

It also represents a more than $5 million savings compared to what Warden presented last month.

Although a final decision won't be made until June, commissioners and Rich Werner, director of Upstate Economic Development, were bullish on the proposed changes.

"We're making great strides to create a sustainable program here," Werner said.

—Tyler Silvy covers city and county government for The Greeley Tribune. Reach him at tsilvy@greeleytribune.com. Connect with him at Facebook.com/TylerSilvy or @TylerSilvy on Twitter.

Up next

The Upstate Economic Development Board is expected to vote on an agreement with Weld County, including renting space from the county for $1 per year and administering the fundraising and marketing portion of the Bright Futures higher education grant program, at the end of May. After that, county commissioners are expected to vote on the agreement, as well as approve the first members of the Bright Futures Board.

By the numbers

The following numbers represent Weld County’s estimated annual contribution to the Bright Futures program, and assumes an additional $1.5 million in donations annually. 2-year is the costs of cutting the program to two years instead of four. 4-year is keeping the program at four years. Colo. only, Colo./Wyo and Colo./Surrounding refer to students being limited to higher education institutions in Colorado, Colorado and Wyoming and Colorado and surrounding states.